I handed mum her birthday present before we tucked into the delicious breakfast that was on offer. There was a good selection of cold buffet items and an option for a cooked breakfast to order. After we were comfortably replete, we walked to the Yorkshire museum via the museum gardens. The gardens were pleasant with the spring bulbs flowering and there was just as many squirrels as there were on my last visit.

The museum was excellent covering, amongst other displays, the Roman and Mediaeval eras. The special exhibition is Jurassic World with a fine display of dinosaurs. This part of the museum was rather crowded due to to Easter weekend and the exhibition had only recently opened. We had arrived as the museum opened but when we left a huge queue had formed outside so it would be much more crowded very soon.

We then made our way to Fairfax House whilst trying to find a suitable tearoom for lunch. This proved a little difficult as there weren’t many tearooms in that area of York. We found somewhere eventually, although it wasn’t quite what we had in mind.

Fairfax House was once the winter home of Viscount Fairfax and his daughter, Anne. This branch of the Fairfaxes were a prominent Catholic family who owned extensive property and land in the county of York.  The house passed through various owners before coming a gentleman’s club and friendly society and eventually becoming a cinema and dance hall. By 1980 the house stood empty when, due to the historical importance of the building, the York Civic Trust undertook restoration of the house and housed it with the collections that we see today.

As we left Fairfax House and made our way back into town it started to rain so we ducked into Marks and Spencer so that Mr C could buy an umbrella. Upon opening it he nearly cleared the store as it has a rather fierce spring loaded opening mechanism. Suitably equipped for the weather, we went in search of a tearoom. This proved a little difficult because most people had had the same idea and they were all full. Eventually we found one that was almost empty. There were some delicious cakes on display but I decided not to indulge.

After our tea we made our way around the corner to the Treasurer’s House; former home to wealthy industrialist Frank Green. The house displays his collections of antique furniture, ceramics, art and textiles. Sadly, by the time we had finished looking around the house, there was no access to the gardens. I have yet to see the garden; on each occasion I have visited there has been no access to them.

We returned the hotel to freshen up before dinner in Bennett’s Bistro. Once again the food was delicious, I chose Gnocchi with butternut squash and red onion.

After checking out of the hotel we walked along the bit of the town walls that we hadn’t already done.  Following that we had a quick visit to the City Art Gallery whilst we waited for the Treasurer’s House to open.

The Treasurer’s House is only open for guided tours at this time of year.  When we arrived we chose the ghostly myths tour which was very interesting, especially the story of a child visitor that could see a lady in one of the rooms that no-one else could see.  That particular room did have rather an unusual type of coldness to it.  After the tour we had lunch in the teashop before parting our ways and returning home.

Speaking of ghosts reminds me of a strange incident at work today.  Both my colleague and I heard the noise of footfall and were aware of a presence behind us.  When we looked there was no-one there…